Mazes and labyrinths in dreams. Some mazes seem to be trying to frustrate the dreamer. Resistance? Some side of you that's protesting? But some mazes seem just out to slow you down, a very different message; and some, to induce a trance or meditative state, even to teach. And I suspect not all labyrinths reflect our minds at all: some show you in physical form what's already around you. Anyone stuck in a tax dispute or peace negotiation or tangled divorce or a scientific puzzle who dreams of a labyrinth probably isn't getting all Jungian--you really are in a maze, right? And the details of the dream-maze may help solve the waking one.

BISON AND SPINDLE: by Wayan; 2016/6/29, twin dreamlets of strange creatures
First, in a maze, I meet a huge bison with her calf; then, in a school gym, an even bigger alien, twiggy, spindle-shaped, mysterious...

CLARENCE, GO THIS WAY: by a Michigan mom and son, before 1961, a shared dream
I dreamed I sat high in a pine tree when my son stumbled through the woods, clearly lost. So I called...
Meanwhile my son, off at college, dreamed he was lost in a forest when he heard a voice above him call...

EMBARKATION, or, THIS PORTAL COIL: by Wayan; 2013/8/28, a magical dream on dreams
A spiral pillow-path leads to an astral portal. But creatures arriving and departing jam the same path! Squeeze by, hop over, apologize... flirt?

EMBER IN THE BRAIN: by Wayan; 1983/3/31, a dreamtale on anger.
I'm the Incredible Hulk, forced to do emergency brain surgery. And the patient's burning from within...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND UNLICENSED MEDICINE

THE EVEREST MARATHON: by Wayan; 1986/4/12, a wild dream epic, part 3 of Unicorn Tag.
During the great race up Everest, I become an e-snake, cross three eco-bubbles, beg a wary deer-taur to splice my spine for me, help Ariane (a childhood crush on the run from sentient tanks), and solve at last the Dream Equations... I learn climbing Everest doesn't take strength, but... trust?

EYELASH GUY: by HareTrinity; 2003?4?5?, a fortunately nonrecurring dream
A coach-driving vampire seemed kind of cute until he raped me. If that's even his real face...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE

FIRE-CATS: by Wayan; 1981/10/10; twin dream-poems on over-discipline
I EXECUTE a forest-fire-fighting cat for mere disobedience! So next I'm stuck in a security-obsessed job; how do I like it? I flee...

FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 2.6M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic.
I had a spectacular dream one night, that lasted many days in dream-time--a true other life. It wasn't Earth, and we weren't human.
I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. I woke on deck deep in the night, my friends curled around me, and realized I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a grown woman, marry and have pups. I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom. Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right...
If 2600K is too big to load, try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM

FISHERGIRL IN WATERCOLOR; OVAL: by Wayan; 1996, watercolor of a 1996/7/15 dream scene.
A watercolor portrait of Leaf and me on our boat in the lost city, from the dream FISHERGIRL...
CAUTION: TRIBAL NUDITY

FREDDY KRUGER'S POLITICS: by Wayan; 1992/8/20, a dream of... ambition?.
Freddy has plans for me and Telly Savalas's daughter... but what can he lure us with? What do we want?

A GAMER'S DREAM: by Mark Nelson; 2002/3/5; A collage of real-world events brought into dreams
I face a barrage of deadly challenges out of every action film I've seen and every game I've ever played...

HER GESTURED ROUTE: by Wayan; 1984/6/16, a dream poem.
How's it feel to be an anima off the job? Is it lonely, when no one even believes you're a real person?

HIS MINE: by Wayan; 1985/12/2, a wild dream epic.
I'm a hobbit seeking Henry Fonda's haunted gold mine, but I end up in a showdown in a shaman's bar...

I TURNED OFF JESUS: by Chris Baker; 2011/2/18; an "oops!" dream
Playing Mario Kart, I stray into a darkness where Earth floats, burning. And then Jesus speaks up! But I carelessly hit the OFF button...

JAMIE THE SORCERESS: by Wayan; 1984/11/14, a characterological dream.
I get back from vacation to find the landlady's installed her daughter in our shared house...

JOIN THE HUMAN RACE: by Wayan; 1985/2/11, a Gordian dream.
My shortcut in a marathon bogs down in a maze full of psychoanalysts! So I climb the walls and...

KICK THE FAERIE BELL: by Wayan; 2015/8/20, a busy, bizarre dream-poem whose message is hid in plain sight
I'm a courier with a message for the Faerie Queen. Can I avoid all these colorful, sexy, crazy distractions, and focus on the Studio and the Gong?

MAGIC SCHOOL: by Wayan, 1982/1/26: a waking event and replying dream.
Phyllis Schlafly, killer of the Equal Rights Amendment, provokes a dream of being Captain Kirk trapped in a magic school with no way out but the graduate exam... Can I learn the lesson of the tree?
CAUTION: POLITICAL JOURNALISM BEFORE THE DREAM. OH NO!

MY CUBIST CONSCIENCE: by Wayan; 1982/8/5; a dream warning of overharsh ethics.
I dreamed I was trapped in the maze of my pacifist vegetarian feminist anarchist eco-conscience...

THE PEAK WHERE I DIED: by Wayan; 1983/1/16. A dark dream-comic.
I froze to death trying to climb an icy peak. But I try again, and this time, no holds barred. Wow, am I selfish! But alive...

REFLECTIONS IN THE POOL: by Wayan; 184K total, 2 panoramas; a 1994/7/2 dream.
Night. A mirror-maze of contradictory preachings. But in the secret mermaid pool, I find love.
Then... sphinx-angels war in the air! A war of riddles. Can I, a batwinged devil, make peace?
CAUTION: SEX, NUDITY, MEAN ANGELS, AND ONE HAPPY DEVIL

SECRET SCREEN: by Wayan; 2018/4/19 and 2018/5/16, three linked dreamlets on escaping grim games
A friend talks me into being lookout as he steals a cult's secret papers. I know it'll end in murder, but foresight paralyzes me!
Trying to master a game that freezes unplayably now & then, I find a button leading to a secret screen full of second chances...
I'm lost in a grim basement, but two kids show me an exit door whose cobwebby glass can be walked through like air...

SPOCK'S SPIRITS: by Wayan; 2000/3/12, a financial-advice dream.
Lost in a dark maze of machine-shops, I follow Mr. Spock, who's drunk, and talks to tree-spirits...
CAUTION: ALCOHOL AS INSPIRATION?

TAROT: THE MAZE: by Wayan; 32K. Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
When you start thinking and scheming hard, you can end up "amazed": lost in a maze of choices...

THE TRAIN: by John Hollander; spring 1974; a poem based on a shared dream
A couple slips in and out of sleep, dreams, one another's bodies and one another's dreamworlds, trying to connect...
CAUTION: FREUDIAN SYMBOLISM, LITERATE WRITING

TRESPASSERS IN MALANCHAI: by Hyal; 100K, Feb 1996?, an epic dream with a weird intrusion.
A maneless lion-boy wins his people’s respect. While training, he sees weird trespassers who seem to be from someone else's dream... and ten years later, he finds that dreamer.

A VALLEY NEAR HOPE: by Wayan; 1984/10/17-19, an epic dream.
I'm lost in a valley where unicorns love cyborgs but fear giant ants, who adore unicorns but hate cyborgs, who think ants are cute, but dread unicorns! And while the Three Tribes love and hate, cave-monsters sculpt them all. I set up peace talks between these four vertices of my tetrahedral soul, but what if I get what I want? Peace, love... transformation? What if those aren't cute and New Age?
CAUTION: SWEARING, DRUNK LIONS, CYBORG SURGERY, AND GOGGLE-BARFING

THE WEB-BIRD LED ME: by Wayan; 115K, 1994. Digital sketch of a vision... of this dreamsite?.
Maybe the web like a shining dove will lead me out of my lonely cave into the light. The glaring light. Wait!
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY